Rocket Lab

Caleb Roundy
AMES
A2
Doug Hendricks

Abstract
The purpose of this lab was to take all of the required steps to be able to predict the
height that a certain rocket would travel with any of the given engines. Once the predicted height
was found, the actual rockets would be launched off using the necessary precautions for accurate
results, and then the predicted heights and actual heights of the rockets would be compared. Five
rockets were launched off, but three of the five rockets ended up flying in conditions that caused
the rockets to fly off at a curve and due to this the height could not be accurately calculated. The
first successful rocket flew to a height of 48 meters. This, however, was 15 meters off of the
predicted height that it would fly of 63 meters. The second successful rocket flew to a height of
78 meters which was 11 meters off of the predicted height of 67 meters.
Introduction
The object of this lab was to test everything that has been taught in this section of the
class and apply it to a real life problem and allow the people doing the project to get experience
in a real life application of physics. This project was done as an opportunity to test the
knowledge that has been attained throughout the course and learn how to apply this knowledge
in a given scenario.
The general things that were taught in this course to prepare the students for this project
were kinematics, dynamics, impulse, momentum, drag force, and what the drag coefficient is.
Kinematics is the study of motion which is necessary to know because it includes how things
move the way they do. Dynamics is the study of the forces that cause motion which includes why
objects move the way they do. This includes the forces that act on an object which will be needed
multiple times in the project. Impulse is defined as a force applied to some object over a certain
amount of time. In other words, Impulse equals the force times the change in time. Momentum is
defined as a mass in motion. It is the force at which an object moves due to its mass and velocity.
Momentum is equal to an object's mass times its velocity. The drag force is the force that the air
exerts on an object in the opposite direction that the object is moving. The drag coefficient is a
number determined by how much surface area and how aerodynamic an object is to relate the
drag force to the velocity of the object squared.
The impulse momentum theorem must also be known to complete this project. This
theorem states that impulse is equal to the change in momentum. To derive this, start with
newtons second law which says the sum of all forces is equal to the mass times the acceleration
or F=ma. This function can then be manipulated in a way that makes the impulse (F*t) equal to
the change in momentum (P).
The types of rocket engines and what their
names stand for must also be known. The
engines used will be an A8, B6, and C6
engines. The number stands for the impulse of
the engine. If it is an A engine it has an impulse
of 2.5, and B engine has an impulse of 5.0, and
a C engine has an impulse of 10.0. The impulse
doubles with the change to the next letter. The
number after the letter indicates the average
force that the engine exerts over the period
where it is active. The engines will also have a

second number such as 4 in C6-4. The second number indicates the delay for the parachute after
the engine runs out of fuel.
Finally, numerical iteration will be used on the spreadsheet to calculate all of the different
types of data that are needed every tenth of a second. Numerical iteration is a process where the
data given is calculated separately for each data point or time period in this case. The spreadsheet
that will be used uses the data it calculated in the previous row to calculate the new data for the
next row. This is done because the skills for finding an equation to represent these data points at
any point in time are far beyond what has been taught so far.
Engine Thrust Analysis
For this lab, the materials used were, a car with an engine connected to it, a track for the
car, a digital force gauge, a battery, an ignitor, and a CBL for data. The purpose of this lab was to
use the given equipment, using the CBL to plot force versus time, to find specifically what kind
of engine was attached to the car. With this, the thrust that the engine puts out every tenth of a
second will be known which will help further on.
To set all this up to get the needed data, the car was put on the track with the force gauge
directly in front of the car making sure that the force gauge would not move from the force of the
car so that it would read accurate measurements. Then the track was put at a slight angle so that
the car would role towards the force gauge and stay in position instead of moving backwards
before starting the test. Next the battery was hooked up to the ignitor which was carefully placed
inside of the engine on the car and plugged to keep it inside of the engine.

Now the more difficult part was setting up the CBL to record the force that the car
exerted on the force gauge over a certain time period. To do this, first the CBL was connected to
the digital force gauge and the CBL automatically sensed the digital force gauge so there was no
need to tell the CBL what it was connected to, after this, the Data Mate program was used. First
the force gauge was zeroed so that it would only be recording the force of the engine and not the
initial force caused by the angle of the track. Next was setting up a time graph. The interval was
set to one tenth of a second and set to record 30 samples so that there was a 3 second window for
recording the force. Finally was the trigger setup. The threshold was set to -0.5 newtons of
force. It was set to a negative number because the force gauge measures pushing forces with a
negative number and the force of the engine would be pushing on the force gauge. In addition to
this a prestore of 10% was set so that the data could be seen before it reached the threshold. Once
all of this was set up the battery was turned on.

Once it was all set up, the battery was switched on and the ignitor started the engine and
the CBL quickly started to record data points. The next step was to find what kind of engine was
used. Engines are named by first a letter and then a number. The letter indicates the impulse of
the engine and the number indicates the average force. So first the impulse of the engine was
needed. Since Impulse equals force multiplied by time and the CBL measured force against time,
if the data received was graphed, the area under that graph would be the impulse of the engine.
Since the force that the CBL recorded was a negative value, the sign is just flipped to make the
values positive to make it easier to deal with. This can be done because it wont change the area
under the graph at all. Next the data was graphed.

force
9
8
7
6
5

force 4
3
2
1
0

0.5

1.5

2.5

3.5

time

time
force
time
force
time
force

0
0
1.1
4.195
2.2
3.86

0.1
0
1.2
3.769
2.3
4.134

0.2
0
1.3
3.556
2.4
0.638

0.3
0
1.4
3.708
2.5
0.243

0.4
2.067
1.5
4.012
2.6
0.213

0.5
8.511
1.6
3.86
2.7
0.213

0.6
5.957
1.7
3.739
2.8
0.182

0.7
4.711
1.8
3.86
2.9
0.152

0.8
4.468
1.9
3.921
3
0.123

Once the data and the graph are known, the approximate area can be determined
by using rectangles with the base as the change in time and the height as the force for that time.
Adding all of the rectangles areas would find an approximate area. Since the change in time is
always 0.1 and the height is the force of each time period, each force from the data points can be
multipied by 0.1 and then added all up. When this is done, a total value of 8.535 is found. This
means that the impulse of the engine used was 8.535. Since A engines have a total impulse of
2.5, B engines have an impulse of 5.0, and C engines have an impulse of 10.0, it can be
determined that it is in between a B and a C engine but it is closer to C, so the best guess is that it
is a C engine. Next, the average force that the engine exerted must be found. To find average
force, all the forces must be added up and then divided by the total number of values added
together. However, some values will be excluded. The values used will be from where the time
was 0.4 seconds to where the time was 2.3 seconds. The reason certain values are excluded is

0.9
3.526
2
3.86

because these other values are points at which the engine has not started yet or has almost
completely died out. If these specified data points are added up, a value of 83.586 is calculated,
and to find the average speed that number must be divided by the number of values were used
which was 20. This is calculated to be 4.179 which is approximately 4. Now with this
information it can be safely assumed that the engine used in the experiment was a C4 engine.
However, the engine was actually a C6 engine which means that some of the math done was bad
or the force gauge didnt get accurate results from the force. There is also the chance the rocket
engine did not fire off the way it was supposed to as determined by the factory.
Because the approximate value for impulse was calculated to be 8.5, it was not
completely certain whether a B or C engine was used because this value is so far off from the
actual value of the engines impulse. The reason for this inaccuracy could be due to various things
such as the force was only measured every tenth of a second and the area of the force versus time
graph was found using rectangles which is only an approximation. The area for inaccuracy could
have been decreased by one, measuring the force more often, such as every one thousandth of a
second, and two, finding a program that could find the exact area of the graph instead of just
using rectangles for an approximation. These two things may not have been the only reasons for
the inaccurate results, but fixing them would have definitely made the results more accurate than
they are now.
Drag Force
For this lab the materials given were a wind tunnel, a rocket to use in the wind tunnel, a
string that attached the rocket to the top of the tunnel, a protractor, and a wind speed gauge
(However, we did not get to use the gauge for wind speed in this particular lab as it is not quite
finished with its vacation in Puerto Rico). The object of this lab was to find out what the drag
coefficient on the rocket was so that it could be used to make calculations for the actual
launching of the rocket.
To find the drag coefficient the equation that says the drag force is equal to the drag
coefficient times the velocity squared was used. This is known because it has been
experimentally proven that the drag force is proportional to the velocity squared. This means that
the drag force is equal to a coefficient times the velocity squared. When rearranged to solve for
the drag coefficient, the drag coefficient is found to be equal to the drag force divided by the
velocity squared. However, the drag force was needed to carry out this equation. So the rocket
was set up in the wind tunnel in order to find the drag force that the wind exerts on the rocket. To
set this up first, the rocket was attached to a string in the middle of the wind tunnel, and second,
the protractor was taped to the side of the wind tunnel so that the string was in line with the 90
degree mark. With the string in line the angle of the string could be found which would help in
determining the drag force. Next the wind tunnel was turned on, however, one thing that was not
accounted for was the fact that wind tends to be chaotic which would make it so that the rocket
would not stay in one location and make reading the angle of the string almost impossible. This
was not an issue because the inside of the wind tunnel consists of a honeycomb structure before
the wind hits the rocket. This honeycomb structure directs the wind flow to give it laminar flow.

The wind tunnel was turned on and the rocket shot back at first and then slowly became
steadier. The angle that was read was 60 degrees. However since the string was resting at 90
degrees, this would only be 30 degrees left of the vertical. The speed that the wind in the wind
tunnel was measured to be was 32m/s. With this data, calculations could be done to find the drag
force. To do this, first a free body diagram was drawn and labeled with all of the forces. The
mass due to gravity was going downward from the rocket, the drag force was going in the same
direction as the wind from the rocket, and the tension of the string was now going in a funky
angle. First, the tension vector was defunkified into its components which ended up being the
tension times the cosine of 30 degrees in the upward direction and the tension times the sine of
30 degrees in the opposite direction of the drag force vector.
Now newtons second law could be used. This is the sum of all forces equals the mass
times the acceleration. This was used to find out what the drag force was. This was done first in
the x direction which ended up as the drag force minus the tension times the sine of 30 degrees
all equal to 0 (normally the 0 would be ma, but since the rocket has no acceleration, a would just
be 0 making ma equal to 0). Next, the drag force was solved for which turns out being the drag
force is equal to the tension times the sine of 30 degrees. Since there are two unknowns in this
equation, another equation was needed. Newtons second law was then used in the y direction
which ended up as the tension times the cosine of 30 degrees minus the mass of the rocket times
gravity all equal to 0 (once again, the rocket had not acceleration in this direction). With this,
tension is solved for which tension is equal to the mass times the gravity divided by the cosine of
30 degrees. This was then plugged into the first equation as tension to solve for drag force. When
this is done the drag force is equal to the mass times the gravity times the sine of 30 degrees
divided by the cosine of 30 degrees. This is also equal to the mass times the gravity times the
tangent of 30 degrees. With the mass of 0.061 kilograms and the gravity of 9.8m/s^2 , the answer
for drag force is 0.34514.

This could then be plugged into the equation for the drag coefficient. Doing this would be
0.34514 divided by 32 squared which is equal to 0.00034. Since 1 sig fig is given from our
degrees, we would approximate that number to 0.0003.
Kd=0.34514=0.00034
32*32
Since drag coefficients for all of the rockets launched were needed, this had to be done
with the other rockets too. However, the white rocket did not fit in the wind tunnel so an
estimated guess was made. It had to be greater than the smaller rocket and less than a ping pong
ball because the ping pong ball was about the same width but not aerodynamic like the rocket.
This estimate turned out to be 0.0004.
Numerical Model
For this part of the rocket lab the weights of all the different rockets used were given,
along with the weight of all the different engines, which were A8, B6, and C6 engines and the
drag coefficient for each of the rockets, an excel spreadsheet to plug in the values to get various
types of information about the rocket, and another excel spreadsheet that gave the factories thrust
versus time data for each of the engines. The goal in this part of the lab was to be able to
determine how high each rocket would fly if is was tested with all of the engines.
With this information the weight of each rocket with each engine was easy to find, the
drag coefficient of each rocket could be found, and the thrust of the rocket at any point in time
over an interval of one tenth of a second could be found. Using this data, the excel spreadsheet
could find the average thrust, drag force, average net force, average net impulse, initial velocity,
final velocity, average velocity, and final height of the rocket over each one tenth of a second
interval. To find the average thrust, it took the starting and ending thrusts over the interval and
added them together after which it divided by 2. It found the drag force by taking drag
coefficient and multiplying it by the velocity squared where the velocity is the final velocity of
the previous interval. It found the average net force by taking the average thrust, and subtracting

both the mass due to gravity and the drag coefficient from it. It found the average net impulse by
taking the average net force and multiplying it by the change in time, which was always 0.1
seconds in this case. It found the initial velocity by finding the previous intervals final velocity. It
found the final velocity by adding the average net impulse divided by the mass of the rocket with
its certain engine to the initial velocity. It found the average velocity by adding the initial and
final velocitys together and then dividing by 2. And it found the final height by adding the
average velocity times the change in time to the previous intervals final height.
Once the data was already in the spreadsheet, the final height of the rocket was found by
scrolling down until a number was found in the final height column that had a smaller number
both above and below it. However, to get here all of the information needed to be entered in.
When entering in the mass, a separate mass for each rocket with each engine in kilograms had to
be entered when looking for the final height.
When the mass for the certain rocket and engine was
entered in, the drag coefficient for that particular
rocket was also entered into the spreadsheet.
Red/Black Rocket = 0.0004
Big White Rocket = 0.0004
Red/Yellow Rocket = 0.0003
After this a thrust had to be entered into the sheet for
each time interval, but since there were so many values for this, the spreadsheet that showed the
factory data for thrust versus time for each rocket could be copied and then pasted onto the
spreadsheet to calculate the final height of the rocket.

After the data was scrolled through 9 different times, the final heights for each rocket and
engine were found.
Making sure that the drag
coefficient was included was very
important. If a 0 was entered as the
drag coefficient for no air resistance
then the max height of the Red and
Yellow Rocket with a C engine
would be more than 940 meters.
This is more than three times than three times the height of this rocket when including air
resistance. This would make the actual heights that the rockets traveled extremely far from the
calculated heights.

Since the drag forces for the rockets only had one significant figure, they are not exact,
which could affect the heights that the spreadsheet calculated for each of the rockets. For
example, since the big white rocket has a drag force of 0.0004, the actual drag force could be
anywhere from 0.00035 to 0.00045. Because the actual drag force could be anywhere in between
these numbers, the error bars on the height can be calculated from the spreadsheet by replacing
the drag force with the lower limit and then the upper limit and then comparing those heights to
the original calculated height. If the error bars for the big white rocket with a C engine were to be
found, the heights for the upper and lower limits on the drag force would be compared to the
height with the original drag force which is 196 meters. If the lower limit of the drag force were
used than the height would be 207 meters. If the upper limit of the drag force were used than the
height would be 186 meters. When the lower limit is used, there is a difference of 9 meters
between this one and the original height. When the upper limit is used, there is a difference of 10
meters between this one and the original height. Because of these differences in heights, it can be
concluded that there is an error of about 10 meters on this rocket and engine.
This was not necessary to do during the tests, but it would also be very helpful to find the
amount of time that the rockets continued to rise after the engine burned out. As mentioned
before, the engine of a rocket it named by a letter and then two numbers after that, the second of
which is the delay time for the parachute. The C engines that were used in this experiment were
C6-5 engines which means they have a parachute delay time of 5 seconds. This data would be
helpful so that it could be determined whether the rocket had enough time to reach its maximum
height before the parachute was ejected. If the parachute was ejected before the rocket reached
its max height than it would slow the rocket down negatively effecting the results from the height
of the rocket. To measure the time between the engine burn out and the rocket reaching max
height, the spreadsheet must be viewed. This time will be the difference between the time at
which the engine burns out and the time at which the rocket reaches its maximum height. If the
Big white rocket were equipped with the C engine then the time at which the engine burned out
would be 2 seconds and the time at which it reached its maximum height would be 6.3 seconds.
This difference between these two numbers is 4.3 seconds which means the rocket will be able to
reach its maximum height before the parachute is ejected.

Flight Results
This part of the lab was finally launching the rockets. The rockets were set up onto a
launch pad and prepped for launching. All three rockets were used. The red and yellow rocket
was tested once with an A8 engine and a second time with a C6 engine. The big white rocket was
tested with a C6 engine. The red and black rocket was tested with a B6 engine. Each time a
rocket was set to fly, it was placed onto the launch pad, the ignitor was placed inside the engine,
and the ignitor was attached to the battery. Once they were set up, the battery was turned on
which sent them flying into the sky. The object of doing this was to find the height that the rocket
traveled.
To find the height that the rocket traveled, three people stood 50 meters from the launch
site approximately 120 degrees from each other. Each of these three people were given a device
that would help them find the angle between the ground and the peak height that the rocket

traveled from their viewpoint. This device consisted of protractor, a straw, and a string with a
washer attached to the bottom. The straw was taped horizontally across the flat part of the
protractor and the top of the string was attached to a hole in the protractor halfway through the
horizontal section from which you measure angles. The person would look through the straw and
follow the rocket until it reached its peak. They would read the angle that was shown from the
string and subtract that from 90 degrees because when the straw was horizontal the string read 90
degrees.
The reason three people needed to measure this angle was
because there was a very high chance that the rocket would
fly off in a slightly curved direction. If we only had one
person measuring the rocket they would have not been able
to account for the change in the rockets horizontal
placement above the ground. With using three
measurements you would be able to average the angles
which would account for the curve of the rocket and then
use the new angle to find the height of the rocket. To find
the height of the rocket, first a triangle will be drawn for a
visual reference. On the base of the triangle is 50 meters
because that was how far the measures were from the launching pad. The angle that is used for
the point where the measures were is the average of the three angles that we found. To find the
height of the rocket the equation tan (theta) =opposite/adjacent. Since the height of the rocket is
the same as the opposite side in this case, the equation is reorganized as opposite= adjacent * tan
(theta). After this length is found, the height of the person measuring the angle must be added to
the answer because the angle that was measured was raised above the ground by the height of the
person measuring. For example: If the average angle measured by the three people was 45
degrees then the equation would be 50* tan (45) which equals 50 meters, plus the height of the
person which is approximately 1.5 meters. So the height that the rocket traveled would be
approximately 51.5 meters. However, this would be recorded as 52 meters because the
measurements are not that accurate.
When the red and yellow rocket was launched the first time, the three angle measured
were 45, 40, and 44 degrees. The average of these angles is 43 degrees. So the equation

would be 50*tan (43) which

equals 46.6, plus the height of the
person which is 1.5 meters. The
height of the rocket would be
approximately 48 meters. The
calculated height of this rocket
and engine was 63 meters which
was quite a bit off from our actual
test. The next rocket launched
was the red and black rocket. The
three angles measured were 74,
47, and 50 degrees (the 74
degrees comes from a curve in the rocket which is why multiple measurers are required). The
average of these angles is 57 degrees. If this is put into the equation and added to the height of
the measurer, the height of the rocket is found to be 78 meters. The calculated height for this
rocket was 67 meters. Again, a little off of the actual height, but not as far from it as the red and
yellow rocket.
After this, the big white rocket was launched. The angles that were retrieved from this
test were 70, 48, and 95 degrees. Because we have an angle that is more than 90 degrees, that
means that the rocket traveled more than 50 meters horizontally. Because the rocket curved so
much the test was thrown out as the methods used to find the heights of the other rockets would
not be accurate enough to find the height of this rocket. To try for better measurements, this
rocket was launched a second time with the same engine, however, the rocket curved too much
once again. Finally, the red and yellow rocket was launched for its second trial with a C6 engine.
But the same thing that happened to the big white rocket happened to this rocket.
Conclusion
Since only two of the rockets did not curve tremendously in the air, there are only two
viable rocket launches that were able to receive an actual height through calculations and that
can be compared to the predicted heights. The First rocket, which was the red and yellow rocket
with an A8 engine had a predicted height of 63 meters. The actual height that the rocket went in
the test was approximately 48 meters. This is a little further off of the predicted height that the
rocket would go but there are many places for error that could account for this. The second
rocket, which was the red and black rocket with a B6 engine, had a predicted height of 67
meters. The actual height that the rocket went in the test was 78 meters. This is a little bit closer
than the first rocket but there are still plenty of areas for error to account for this gap in the
heights.
Because there are so many sections to getting the predicted height of these rockets, there
are areas for error in all of this different sections. The first section for error in the lab would be
the drag force section of the lab where the drag coefficient of the rockets was found. In this
section the drag coefficient calculated for the red and yellow rocket was 0.0003. The chances of
the calculated numbers actually being correct is very slim on account of a few reasons. First, a
protractor was used to measure the angle of the string, and since it was a little fidgety the angle

was just eyeballed which means that the angle could be more than a few degrees off of the actual
angle. This could cause quite a bit of discrepancy from this drag coefficient and the real
coefficient. To make the results more accurate so that a better prediction could be made on the
flight of our rocket we would have to find a more accurate method of measuring the angle of the
string. A different wind tunnel would have also been helpful so that the white rockets drag
coefficient could have actually been calculated.
The second source of inaccuracies comes from the numerical model section where the
actual heights of the rockets were predicted. Since this section used the data found in the
previous sections to find the final height of the rockets along with some other data, pretty much
all of the error in the spreadsheet would be accounted for by previous errors or inaccuracies.
There is a possibility that the data for the thrust over time given by the factory that make the
engines may not have been as exact as needed, this could have accounted for a little discrepancy
in the final height of the rocket, but only in small amounts.
Finally, the last and one of the biggest sections where there could have been some error
was the flight results section where the rockets were actually launched and data was gathered to
find the height that the rockets flew. Obviously a few things caused discrepancies in the tests
because three of the five trials had to be thrown out. For one, the launch pad may not have been
ideal for launching the rockets straight up which could have been a cause for the curve in the
rockets. Another reason for the curve in the rockets could have been a slight breeze that pushed
the rockets. Because of the curve in the rockets, the heights that the rockets traveled are very
approximated. The angles that were concluded with were also not that accurate as they were
retrieved using a straw and a protractor to measure the angles. A better way to make sure that the
results are as accurate as they need to be to match the calculated heights would be to put the
rockets in a controlled environment, or at least more ideal environment, get a better launching
pad to ensure that the rockets travel straight, and more accurate tools to measure the angle at
each point.
Reflection
Doing this lab report helped me to better understand physics in various ways. The math
that was involved in this lab was not very difficult for me as I am very comfortable with physics,
but it taught me how much math needs to be put into one scenario. We had a simple goal of
trying to be able to predict the height that a rocket with a certain engine would travel, but it
turned out not being so simple. We had to split it into multiple sections, all of which required
time and effort to accomplish accurately. This project also helped me understand how physics
could be used in the real world. Of course I understand that physics is used all the time to do
various things, but I had never tried to use real world physics and I would have never guessed
how much goes into it. Doing this lab really made me appreciate the lengths at which people
have to go to prove certain things. It takes a lot of your time and effort to do. It also helped me
realize how many ways something could go wrong. There are so many parts to this project and a
small error in one section could increase in another section and end up completely ruining your
data. It proved to me how necessary it is to use the best equipment when doing something such
as this. It also makes me wonder how many times this entire process must be done in order to get
the most accurate results. Overall, this lab was a great thing to do. It increased my understanding

and knowledge of the subject as well as forced me to learn how to manage my time more
efficiently.